Current setup: 2 vCPU, 4GB RAM, running Mailman on a HostHatch VPS. But how much RAM? Not enough, apparently. My list has 200 subscribers, legitimate opt-in traffic, and my IP is warm (established 18 months). Yet deliverability to major providers is 60% at best.
I've tried:
Shared host mail() — throttled at 50/hour
Mailgun equivalent — fine until volume hit, then $$$$
Self-hosted on 8GB KVM — better but still spam-foldered
I need something that doesn't flag legitimate list traffic. Budget is not my primary constraint; reliability is. Currently running 32GB threadripper at home for other projects, so I understand hardware. Just want email that works.
I asked Hetzner about this once. They don't do email hosting or mail relay services at all — it's cloud, dedicated servers, storage boxes and colocation. I ended up running my own mailman on one of their boxes in Falkenstein, which works fine for lists under a few hundred subscribers but you have to handle deliverability yourself.
For what it's worth their support is ticket-only, no phone, and they will ask for ID scans at signup. Price to performance on the actual hosting is unbeatable in Europe though.
